The Blank Page

Welcome, dear reader, to my blog. That’s right, I have a blog now. Recently, I found myself suffering from blog envy and, as we all know, there’s only one cure for that. Get blogging. Whether anyone asked you to or not.

I can’t promise this is going to be a weekly thing. Or monthly. I guess that all depends on how well the writing is going and just how distracting the world beyond my keyboard becomes. I can’t promise it’ll be much more than me talking about myself either. There might be some book and film reviews of a sort in there. Or some hype and hope for the many talented people I’m lucky enough to know. Still, I’ll do my best to make this as interesting as I can and keep you posted on exactly where me and my brain are when it comes to co-existing on a daily basis and telling stories. I’ll try and make some good points along the way and be as open with you as I can. If I can do that, then I think we’re off to a good start.

I’m trying to remind myself these days that horror is a many splendoured thing. In fiction, that is. I’m not watching the news, smiling a slow snake smile and muttering the word ‘beautiful’ to myself. I’ll leave that to the people pulling the politician’s strings. Surely there must be someone watching the blossoming groundswell of chaos reaching far across the world today and congratulating themselves. Before turning to Hitler’s living brain (now safely implanted inside the body of a gaunt, pale, asthmatic gorilla) and offering a deeply worshipful high five.

Sometimes, the universe speaks to you. Or that’s how I choose to see it. I suppose it’s just coincidence, really. It’s either that or I’m deciding to pick up on the same, repeating cues to assemble my own, personal breadcrumb trail. It’s a way of making sense of the noise. Or using the noise to make sense of yourself.

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Some weeks, you just can’t win. It’s not right, it’s not fair. They're the horrendous traffic jam when you're already late. They're the one email or customer that is going to totally derail your plans to get through Monday unscathed. The large, slow moving spider that appears as the shampoo starts to sting your eyes. It’s basically some sort of event horizon conjured by statistics and chance.

Dear 38 year old me, Hi, how’re you doing? Well, I guess you’re resting right now. If all things go to plan, then you’re due for a pretty big year ahead of you. There’s the new book coming out, Fluff. There’s another book to write. You’ve got a massive new Avengers movie and the first female Doctor Who to look forward to as well. I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you luck and send on your way with a little advice.

I’m not what you’d label as faithful. I loaded myself up with a heavy dose of cynicism as a kid and it stops me from comfortably believing most commonly accepted miracles. Although there are some things in this world that can catch me off guard. Things that appeared to have reached in from beyond the beige walls of our rather ready salted existence. Great inventions. Scientific breakthroughs. Moments of hope or moments of true charity. Great works of art or music that can grab you by the soul.

Okay, okay. The rewrite is moving into the home stretch. It really is. I'm pretty sure it is, only it’s taking longer than I wanted. It was meant to be finished this week and the delay has not been too good for my nerves. For my attention span. For my patience. It’s been a week of feeling defeated by my own story, but I'm pretty sure victory isn’t too far off now. Next week. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be next week. I hope it's going to be next week. So, as I make a push to get this final, final, final draft finally completed I thought I’d use this week to share something with you. As things stand, what follows are the first 900 or so words my second novel will start with. In more ways than I can really express right now, I hope you like it.

Sit down. The show’s about to start. What’s that? How am I? We probably don’t have time for that. I’m still rewriting the new novel. Taking it apart. Clearing out the problems and the pretentious ideas. Rebuilding it into something that will hopefully attract more readers and sell better. I mean, you’ve got to get your kicks somewhere, right?